BAIDOA, Somalia — Thousands of Islamic militants have surrounded the only town that Somalia's government controls, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said Tuesday, as a top Islamic official said his forces would attack within a week unless troops from neighboring Ethiopia left the country.

The surrounded town of Baidoa was teeming with soldiers Tuesday. Ethiopian troops supporting the Somali government are believed to be based around Baidoa, but were not immediately identifiable. Many Ethiopians are ethnically Somali and both countries' government troops wear the same uniforms.

Ethiopia acknowledges sending military advisers to help Gedi's internationally recognized government but denies sending a fighting force. A confidential UN report obtained by The Associated Press in October said up to 8,000 Ethiopian troops were in Somalia or along the border backing the government. (AP)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan

Suicide bomber kills 8 in attack on governor

A suicide bomber blew himself up at the governor's compound in southern Helmand Province on Tuesday, killing eight people, including a district chief, officials said. Eight people were wounded.

Governor Mohammed Daud was inside his office in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, at the time of the blast but escaped injury, his spokesman, Ghulam Muhiddin, said. It was the latest in a string of attacks by Taliban-led militants to target top officials in the administration of President Hamid Karzai.

Six policemen and two civilian men were killed in the blast and eight police officers were wounded, said Ahmadullah Khan, a doctor at the hospital in Lashkar Gah where the victims were sent for treatment. Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to be a Taliban spokesman, said in a telephone conversation that the group had carried out the attack. (AP)

MILAN

Former top spy arrested in surveillance case

A former Italian spy chief was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of involvement in an illegal espionage ring that prosecutors say snooped on members of the Italian elite, including Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

Marco Mancini, former head of counterespionage at the Sismi military intelligence agency, already faces possible indictment on separate charges of helping the CIA kidnap a Muslim cleric in Milan.

Prosecutors say they suspect the illegal spy group was led by the former security chief at Telecom Italia, Giuliano Tavaroli. They say it illegally gathered sensitive data from telephone records of leading Italian personalities. (Reuters)

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Dozens of wildfires burning Tuesday across southern Australia destroyed more than a dozen homes and a popular ski lodge, while residents in a suburb of the western city of Perth were urged to flee an approaching blaze.

More than 3,000 firefighters were working to contain the fires in four states, with the worst centered in Victoria and Tasmania.

A popular ski lodge in the Snowy Mountains was destroyed after firefighters failed to fend off the blaze, according to media reports.

Smaller fires were also burning in New South Wales and Western Australia. Wildfires are a regular feature of summer in Australia, but the danger has been heightened this year by the country's worst drought in more than a century. No deaths have been reported. (AP)

British scientists have supported the use of primates in medical research to improve human health and reduce deaths from disease but only if no alternatives were available.

David Weatherall, lead author of a report on the use of nonhuman primates in research, said in some cases primates are essential to answer scientific questions because other animals such as mice and rats are too different from humans.

"There is a scientific case for careful, meticulously regulated nonhuman primate research, at least in the foreseeable future, provided it is the only way of solving important scientific or medical questions and high standards of welfare are maintained," he said at a news conference Tuesday as the report by the Academy of Medical Sciences was issued.

He stressed the use of primates should be judged on a case-by-case basis and that other methods including cellular and molecular research, computer modelling and using animals such as transgenic mice should be considered. (Reuters)